Last Christmas and Future Birthdays

I made some more birthday cards this week, not for any particular challenge this time.  I was using an old card making magazine as inspiration, mentally converting particular pictures into a sketch and making a card based on that "sketch".  It's funny that even when I start out recreating a card design (same layout but different paper, supplies, images etc) I end up making modifications that ultimately make it my own card.

Here is another birthday card made with the Basic Grey "Archaic" line, including a border and arrow sticker from the same collection.  The only things that stayed from the card I was using as a model were the verticle strip of background paper with a border, the main strip of paper across the front, and the rounded corners on the focal piece.  I think this one works as another masculine card, which are always tougher to come up with.

The card that inspired this had a vertical layout and one more panel of background paper.  The main inspiration I took from it was matting each piece of paper on a white piece to make it pop.  I also like how the Happy Birthday sticker repeats that, even though that was completely unanticipated at the time and I didn't really notice until I was loking at the card now to write about it.

These are more Basic Grey coordinated papers, from the Cupcake line, on a kraft card.  I used the Fiskars Threading Water border punch to make the scalloped edge, and the ribbon along the edge came from Michael's.  The stickers were a clearance find in the party aisle of Target.

Now for some more "catch-up" cards.  These are some of the extras of the card designs I did for my holiday cards last December:

I enjoyed focusing on a set of papers and finding different designs for them.  The top card was created by just punching multiple circles of several designs out and arranging them on a card.  A strip of "Merry Christmas" paper became the greeting, and I added a snowflake brad to one circle for a bit of visual interest.

To make the tree cards, I cut long strips of several paper patterns and attached them to a piece of cardstock backing to make stripes, then used a Christmas tree stencil design from a border stencil to cut out the individual trees.  That way I could make lots of trees at a time for multiple card production.  The stamped greeting is from Savvy Stamps.

I love that retro looking asterisk star paper and would love to find more of it.  Definitely going to be on the lookout for similar retro designs from the shiny 50s and 60s when this year's releases of Christmas designs start to appear.

Thanks for looking, and enjoy your weekend!